Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/528

 51e / rEDJBBAL BXFOBTEB. �when released, hy a, spring, hda, not infringed by defendant's device con- structed substantialJy similar to the prior battery gun, except that the car- tridge cbamber is discarded and the cartridge thrast direcUy into the rear of the barrel. �Henry Par sons, for plaintiff. �Wm. Edgar Simonds and A. P. Hyde, for defendant. �Shipman, i). J. This is a bill in equity, founded upon the alleged infringement of letters patent issued to the plaintif Decemher 2, 1862, for an improved repeating or machine gun. The first and sixth claims of the patent are said to have been infringed, and are as foJ lows: �(1) Presenting and thrusting the cartridges into the rear of the revolving barrel or series of such barrais in one point in its circuit, conflning and dis- charging them at another point in such circuit, and removing the shells or cases in another part of such circuit, in the manner substan tially as set f orth. (6) The clearing hooks, 1 1, arrangea and operated as described in connection with the revolving barrels, G, or their equivalents. �The defendant's gun is made under letters patent to Eiehard J. Gatling, of May 9, 1865. The difference in the construction of the two guns is tersely and correctly explained by Mr. Edward H. Knight, one of the defendant's experts, as follows : �"The Palmer gun consists of a series of revolving barrels with one set of loading, firing, and extracting mechanisms operating upon eaeh of the barrels in turn, the motion of the barrels being intermitted while these varions opera- tions are performed. If may, therefore, for practical purposes, be called one gun with four barrels. It has the advantage over a gun with one barrel in allowing the various operating mechanisms for loading, firing, and extracting, to operate upon the barrels consecutively as they pause for that purpose, dur- ing their circuit of revolution. The Gatling gun may be considered as having as.many gun mechanisms as barrels, being a System of a number of independ- ant guns revolving together on a common axis. Eaeh gun bas its own bar- rel, loading, and shell-extracting de vices, as well as its own firing pin. Eaeh gun is 80 far independent that it may be made inoperative by the extraction of the loading plunger and firing pin without affecting the action of the other gUns. The loading and firing can only take place while the revolution is proceeding, as these actions depend upoh the contact of the revolving parts with certain stationary cams on the inside of the hollow stationary breech casing. Eaeh loading apparatus and firing pin and ejecter belongs to its own barrel, with which it is in constant alignment. Eaeh operation of loading, firing, and ejecting covers a certain part of the eircle of revolution, being com- pleted as to eaeh barrel by one circuit. One circuit delivers a volley of balls equal in number to that of the barrels." �It was testified on the part of the defendant, without contradiction, that a search into the state of the art through the United States and ��� �